It can feel complicated to hope these days. We take in so many messages of fear and othering; we see so much evidence of our fellow humans leaning into their basest negativity. And yet, we also are surrounded by humans steadfastly following their inner compass pointing toward justice, compassion, wisdom, kindness, strength. Spotlighting victories for fairness and right action illuminates courage we all need, to stay the course.

In that spirit of focusing attention on affirmative examples, we can reflect on people whose shoulders we stand on when we’re our best selves and when we endeavor to elicit positive action from those around us as well, from our clients or students or coworkers to politicians, family and friends, and folks next to us in the check out line at a store. Every interaction is an opportunity to lead with an open heart and mindful spirit. I’ve got an informal collection of folks whose actions or writings or stories have resonated with me in ways that make me stronger and more resilient. Take what you need, and leave the rest. Focus on your own mentors and dwell on what makes them make you better. Some look for heroes; to me that’s one more way to externalize power, when we urgently need more ways to internalize and manifest our own power more effectively and consistently. I prefer a path of finding helpers. When we see how truly interdependent we are, as a collective full of individuals linked inexorably to each other, it’s easy to see that when we stand tall, we rise from a lot of people’s shoulders. 

In many true ways we’re on our own to make healthy, courageous, honest choices. That can be scary, empowering, or both. We see a lot of so-called powerful people abandoning their oaths and promises and consciences, and capitulating to cowardice and avarice. They’re failing the tests of this time, and making dark choices that hurt us as well as themselves. Even with those plentiful moral failures imperiling our security and liberty, we’re not completely alone. Our world has also been touched and molded at times by beauty, light, and brave tenacious compassion; sometimes I need to remember that. Thus remembering the shoulders.  

Highlighting positives for a moment isn’t naivete. It’s not wishful thinking or denial. Deeply wrong actions being taken by people purporting to be leaders are real, plentiful and damaging, and must be opposed. We must put stronger, better, smarter ideas out in front of our fellow citizens so we can cultivate them together, and we must put stronger, better, smarter – and kinder and braver – humans into our leadership roles. All that remains true, even as we occasionally take a breather to summon insights of a range of thought leaders past & present, who can motivate us to keep after the difficult and real work that needs to be done, when we’re tempted to think it’s too hard. In fact the work is far, far too important for us to falter, so we need all the inspiration and camaraderie we can find. Here’s to the helpers. 

Carol Dweck is an example of shoulders we rise from, for me. She’s an American psychologist who has contributed key concepts to organize our ability to achieve growth, change, and self-regulation. The “growth mindset” is part of our lexicon in many fields now. Here’s a 10-min TED talk from Dweck. Revisiting the power of belief in self, belief in our capacity to do truly hard things, helps me regularly in my work with clients & students, and it also energizes my ongoing work with myself. I appreciate so deeply what a growth mindset conversation can do to convert pessimism into possibility. And I appreciate how heavy a lift it may have been for Dweck to introduce these new innovative ideas to her field. Insight combined with tenacity is a profound combination.

Trusting our own realizations or even our dreams as worth testing for validation, we can try anything we can imagine. It’s radical, to implement a new framework. At a time when deeply malevolent humans are testing the things they’ve imagined, in experiments to break our democracy and remake it into a meaner, seedier, greedier oligarchy than the grimiest robber barons envisioned, we who envisage equity need to fuel ourselves, as deeply and sustainably as possible. The construction of a new paradigm changes the playing field. We’re seeing this in action malignantly: what is our nation’s moral compass without our 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Constitutional amendments? How does our government function without its Article I branch? Dominionists, White Supremacists and Project 2025 authors & acolytes have answers to these questions and are thirstily taking them out of the rhetorical space into live action all around us. We ignore or indulge them at our peril. What is our new paradigm in response? Can we be robust and coherent enough to counter the assault now underway? A growth mindset tells us we can; thank you, Dr. Dweck. 

We can use the tenets of a growth mindset – the risks and skills required to embody “yes, we can” – to help ourselves and each other achieve goals we need to reach even though we feel daunted by apparent indications that we cannot. Dweck’s work provides a scaffolding on which even doubting individuals can strengthen our hope, dig into our work, and find layers of confidence that keep us moving forward til we prove capable beyond our own previous imagining. Isn’t that a powerful lesson we all need right now!?

Keep the Faith and Keep in Touch.